A LENTEN REFLECTION ~ 7

Once, when Brother Weeps was quite old, a group of young people invited him to speak to them on the Christ-life. They sat together in the shade of a cypress grove. Brother spoke and they listened. Then, he invited their responses. They spoke and he listened.

After talking together for two hours or so it grew quiet and out of the quiet a woman spoke. “Brother Weeps, you quoted your teacher saying “It is not we who choose to awaken ourselves, but God who chooses to awaken us.”* If it is not too presumptuous to ask or too personal to tell, could you say what in your life has been the most painful eureka moment and what the most wonderful?”

“Oh my, such questions you ask,” said Brother Weeps. He shut his eyes and tilted his head toward the tops of the cypress where the wind played. Silence held them all as the sun tenderly revisited the old man’s face. He opened his eyes, looked at them and said, “Two awakenings. The first painful. The second wonderful. The first about me. The second about God. The awakening about me: discrepancies. The awakening about God: no discrepancy.”

~ Dan Miller, All Rights Reserved, ©  2020.

Note: * The quote in the story is from Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation